Ambridge's proposal cannot account for the most basic observations about phonological patterns in human languages. Outside of the earliest stages of phonological production by toddlers, the phonological systems of speakers/learners exhibit internal behaviours that point to the representation and processing of inter-related units ranging in size…

This article shows that first language (L1) transfer may not be effectively maintained in the interlanguage due to confounding factors in the second language (L2). When two factors, "A" and "B," are correlated in the L2, second language learners may only acquire "B," even if "A" is present in the L1.…

This article focuses on the acquisition of mood in early complement clauses of European Portuguese (EP). Two semantic features are involved in the EP mood system--epistemicity and veridicality. An elicited production task administered to 80 children aged 4 to 9 showed that, even though children use the subjunctive in [-- epistemic] contexts, the…

Research on linguistic variation suggests that usage patterns are deeply embedded in native and non-native speakers' knowledge of grammar. This study explores the transfer of these variable sociolinguistic patterns at the initial stages of third language acquisition. We elicited narratives in Portuguese from two mirror-image groups of sequential…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the exchange of disfluencies from function words to content words with age in Brazilian Portuguese speakers who do and do not stutter. Ninety stuttering individuals and 90 controls, native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, were divided into three age groups (children, adolescents and adults). The study…

This review article evaluates the intersection of the content of two recent anthologies in second language (L2) phonology. One of the books lays out both the methodological context and theoretical underpinnings of the field, whereas the other volume reports 11 empirical studies on the L2 acquisition of several aspects of pronunciation by adult…

It is cross-linguistically common for languages to undergo a diachronic increase in the range of adverbial notions that can be expressed by means of infinitival constructions, and the Romance languages are a good example of this process. Examining the development of adverbial "prepositional infinitive" constructions in Spanish, Portuguese and…

Relates characteristics of the Portuguese language to cultural traits of the Portuguese people, focusing on Portuguese history, art, and outlook. (MSE)

This article focuses on a detailed description of patterns of address in Dili Tetum today. It outlines the complexities of the address system and points to considerable variation in its evolving present-day use. We find, amongst other things, that a speaker may use a range of address strategies even to the same addressee, and that the use of…

Compares sound patterns in the speech of two Brazilian-Portuguese speaking children with early production patterns in English-learning children as well as English and Brazilian-Portuguese characteristics. Results emphasize the primacy of production system effects in early acquisition, although even the earliest word forms show evidence of…

Focuses on the directionality observed in the processes of change and acquisition of the prepositions that replaced Latin cases in the speech of Rio de Janeiro and in the contact Portuguese spoken by Brazilian Indians in the region of Xingu. (Author/VWL)

Reviews some features of the vernacular variety of Brazilian Portuguese that occur in the colloquial speech of educated persons, focusing on pronominal complements, reflexives, verb forms, verb tenses, and noun/modifier agreement. (CB)

Discusses a shift in the distribution of first person plural pronouns, as well as changes in the patterns of use of the corresponding verb inflections, in spoken Brazilian Portuguese across four generations of speakers from Rio de Janeiro. (Author/VWL)

Describes some of the current research on Brazilian Portuguese phonology. Various techniques are discussed that analysts utilize to investigate Brazilian Portuguese nasality. (49 references) (CB)

Conversational data from a native speaker of European Portuguese from the island of Faial were analyzed to determine segmental and prosodic contexts favoring unstressed vowel deletion. Factors such as rhythmic preservation, syllable structure, and functional load are discounted in the analysis, suggesting vowel deletion is essentially a word-based…